8:16
by OptimisticGirl
Summary: Since the dawn of time it had been there, forever changing but unmoving until she came. Her presence moved the hands of time and gave him what he hadn't had in centuries - hope. [SPOILERS - 5B speculation] [One-shot]


**This little drabble was born from 5B speculation with always-been-a-pirate and a post mindyourhelm made on tumblr that just made my muse scream to write it.**

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Since the dawn of time the clock had been there.

Its shape had changed over the centuries, molding itself into whatever image the ruler of this realm chose. In days of old it had been a sundial, echoing the simple world its inhabitants had come from. An elaborate Victorian tower had been its image for years, iron beams blending it into the surrounding buildings that changed as time moved forward in the outside world. Its current incarnation was a modern clock set in the crumbling remains of a tower, embedded within the very pavement that ran through the town.

The clock had always been there, but its hands never moved.

Day and night came, seasons changed, and eons passed for the realm's inhabitants but the clock remained silent. Its hands were forever frozen, mocking those who walked by because this was a timeless land, where age and time spent there didn't matter. Even when it had been a simple sundial the shadow that marked the time never moved, forever locked on that same hour and minute. Some inhabitants had been there since the world was nothing more than brimstone and fire, others filtering in over the years as their souls left the mortal world. They were all used to the unmoving clock, the one constant in the realm no matter the shape their world took, many forgetting the ancient fixture was even there.

But not him.

He was a newborn inhabitant compared to the others, a fresh soul from the land of the living now bound to this realm for all eternity and he walked the familiar streets every day, eyes always on the unmoving clock. The nonexistent passage of time didn't bother him. He had spent centuries in another land where time stood still, keeping him at the age of thirty as he sought the means to take his revenge against the Crocodile. No, what bothered him was why a clock existed in a world where time was frozen. It gnawed at the part of him that was always on alert, constantly asking the question of what was to come next but it went deeper than that. He felt drawn to the clock in a way no one else seemed to be. He had felt it tugging him closer from the moment he appeared on the lakeshore of this realm and he could constantly feel its presence no matter where he was in town, a gentle buzzing at the back of his mind like he was tethered to it.

At first it had terrified him, dark memories of feeling another object that had controlled him swimming before him but this was different. This tether didn't fill him with anger or cause bile to rise in his throat whenever he thought of that unbreakable link - no, this was different. It was warm, calming his battered soul like the wind on the open ocean had for centuries and filling him with an overwhelming sense of love when he thought of the strange connection he held with the unmoving clock.

Hades had sensed something was different about him from the moment they met. He had been alive long enough to know when someone was interested in him with a hidden purpose and every time the tailor suited God appeared in the familiar streets to greet him, that sixth sense kicked in. Hades didn't know about the strange connection he felt with the fallen clock but the God kept a careful watch on him, always assessing him to find out what he was hiding. He didn't dare ask any of his fellow residents about the clock, knowing word would get back to the God but what knowledge he had gleaned about it came from Hades' own wife.

She mingled with the realm's inhabitants frequently, a bright ray in the otherwise muted world and although he couldn't say why, he knew their conversations remained between the two of them. From her he had learned the clock had always been there, forever unmoving, and it made him all the more curious as to why he felt connected to an object that had existed long before he had even been born. He continued to observe, to watch the frozen hands throughout the day as he awaited judgement, biding his time until he learned its true secret.

Persephone eventually let it slip.

As they walked past it one day, he pushed further than he ever had before, asking the Goddess if there was a reason for a clock in a realm where time did not matter. She had brushed his question off at first but after gentle yet deliberate prodding she had answered. The clock had been there since the realm's birth she said, never moving but it did have a purpose. It had been foretold when her husband took over the Underworld that one day a woman would come to the realm, full of life and blood with the brightest light in the realms within her. She would come during the zenith of the moon to recapture the soul of a loved one from Hades' grasp, an act that had never been allowed before. Her declaration to fight the God of the Underworld for what was hers would start the clock that had never moved, the beginning of the end for all the souls trapped in purgatory.

It was knowledge that made no sense to him until he asked Persephone on another walk days later what it was about this prophesied woman that was so special. The Goddess had smiled at him, a wistful look in her eyes as she told him this woman, the woman Hades had spent centuries fearing was known as the Savior and it was her job to bring everyone's happy endings back.

If his heart had been beating, it would have beat frantically against his chest at those words. _Her_. It was Emma - his beautiful, strong willed Swan. She was the woman foretold to come here, the force of light that would render the Underworld to its knees. Of bloody course it was her.

Every night after that revelation he stood in the shadows of the buildings around the crumbled clock tower, blue eyes unmoving as he waited patiently for the ancient clock to move. He never doubted that it would because to do so would mean to doubt her, and he had learned long ago atop a bean stalk to never question the fiery blonde's determination. It felt like weeks but could have only been days - in a timeless land, there was no sense of how much of it had passed - when it happened. He was stood staring at the frozen hands when a surge of warmth shot across the connection he had with the tower, filling him to his core and the minute hand, which had been unmoving since the dawn of time clicked forward.

Killian Jones grinned.

She was here. Emma Swan, the Savior and bringer of happy endings, his own happy ending, was in the Underworld.


End file.
